The Acts of the Democracies

Details

1989

USA and Cambodia

The USA Congress passes a law banning direct or indirect "lethal aid" to
Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge (former genocidal rulers of
Cambodia).

In defiance, the USA administration continues to send arms to the Khmer Rouge via
Singapore.

The Khmer Rouge is trained to destabilise Cambodia and neighbouring
Vietnam. The force is trained by the UK. A Ministry of Defence official tells
Simon O'Dwyer-Russell of the UK newspaper, the Sunday Telegraph:

"If [USA's] Congress had found out that Americans were mixed up in clandestine training in Indochina, let alone with Pol
Pot, the balloon would have gone right up. It was one of those classic Thatcher-Reagan arrangements. It was put to her that the SAS should take over
the Cambodia show, and she agreed."